Apparatus for front-cooking applications

ABSTRACT

Food preparation apparatus comprising a top cooking surface, or cooktop, a front wall, a clear see-through wall located on the front side and extending above said top surface, suction means adapted to take in fumes/odours or gases being generated at and released from said cooktop, said suction means comprising a forward inclined intake grille arranged between said cooktop and said vertical wall; the clear see-through wall is curved backwards, with the lower portion thereof extending almost vertically and then gradually curving backwards. A chamber collecting the gases being taken in is arranged below said grille and debouches into a vertical suction conduit, to which there is associated an appropriate suction fan, entering a prismatic filtering chamber provided with a filter in the form of a filtering partition arranged between two opposite sides of said chamber and lying orthogonally to the rear wall of the apparatus.

The present invention refers to an improved kind of food preparationapparatus of the type comprised of a free-standing work, i.e. cookingcounter or bench that can be also installed in an isolated manner, inwhich it is separated from any other apparatus of the same or adifferent kind.

It is exactly for this reason that apparatus of this kind are frequentlyreferred to as “cooking islands” in the art.

These apparatus include appliances as the ones that are generally usedin luncheonettes, lunch or snack bars, self-service restaurants, and thelike, where food is cooked, but more often is prepared or undergoesfinal treatment, or is simply stored under hot-keeping conditions on thetop working surface prior to its being distributed or served out to thefinal customers passing by in front of the same counter. This is alsowhy terms like “front-cooking” or “bench-top units” are commonly used inthe art when referring to such apparatus.

Exactly on the ground that these apparatus are generally not the onesthat are used to actual or basic cooking purposes, they have to beeasily and conveniently displaceable and, therefore, they shall not beconnected to any stationary fume-extractor hood arrangement.

However, the kind of food preparation operations involved or usuallytaking place in such apparatus does not exclude the possibility forgases, odours and fumes to be produced at and be released from theworktop of these units.

Now, in view of removing and exhausting such fumes and gases, known inthe art is the solution involving the use of means to not only extractthe gases and fumes from the zone lying immediately above the worktop,where the food is cooked, prepared, or simply kept stored under suitableconditions waiting to be served out, but also filter such gases andfumes to eventually exhaust them again into the same ambient from whichthey had been extracted.

Known from the patent WO 2006/024499 is a kind of food preparationcounter that comprises means adapted to extract gases being released byand rising from the worktop of said counter, filter such gases andexhaust them again into the same ambient. However, the front casing isin this case provided with an upper horizontal strip 47 projectingtowards the rear zone, whose width is not sufficient to ensure thatgases/fumes being released are intercepted to any adequate extent (cf.FIGS. 5, 8 and 9 accompanying the above-cited document). In addition,such gases/fumes are filtered by a filter that is located in the lowerzone or portion of the apparatus, so that it proves quite awkward andinconvenient for the filter itself to be reached in view of replacingand/or cleaning it.

Known from the patent WO 2005/100863 is a kind of food preparationcounter that is provided with a suction hood extending on the front sideto extract the fumes and gases issuing from the worktop thereof, as wellas means to filter said gases/fumes and to exhaust them again into thesame ambient from which they has been extracted. However, this frontextraction hood 28 has such height and inclination as to make itpractically impossible for a customer standing in front of the counterto pick up a dish therefrom.

Furthermore, the fume extraction zone is most obviously rather highrelative to the worktop, so as to allow the operator to mostconveniently and readily gain access to such worktop. This circumstance,however, has the unfavourable effect of reducing the fume extractionefficiency to a quite significant extent.

Finally, even in this case the extracted fumes/gases are filteredthrough a filter that is arranged inside the body of the apparatus,which again makes it quite awkward and inconvenient for the filter to bereached in view of replacing or cleaning it.

Moreover, the ports through which the filtered gases are exhausted arelocated at the sides of the body of the apparatus, and this can bereadily appreciated to represent a most likely source of inconveniencedue to both a greater noise being issued on the front side and theimpracticableness of the same apparatus as far as the possibility for itto be approached from the sides.

It would therefore be desirable, and is a main object of the presentinvention, actually, to provide an improved apparatus for processing andpreparing food, of the front-cooking or bench-top kind, in particularsuch apparatus intended for use in mass or commercial foodserviceapplications, which is provided with means and is capable of operatingaccording to modes that are effective in ensuring that theabove-described drawbacks and disadvantages are done away with or atleast attenuated.

According to the present invention, these aims, along with further onesthat will become apparent from the description given below, are reachedin a kind of food preparation apparatus, in particular intended for massand commercial foodservice applications, that incorporates the featuresand characteristics as recited and defined in the appended claims

Further characteristics, features and advantages of the presentinvention will be more readily understood from the detailed descriptionthat is given below by way of non-limiting example with reference to theaccompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a perspective outer view of a food cooking or preparationapparatus of the “front-cooking” or “bench-top” type according to thepresent invention;

FIG. 2 is a front planar view of the apparatus shown in FIG. 1, asviewed by an operator thereof;

FIG. 3 is a side planar view of the apparatus shown in FIGS. 1 and 2;

FIG. 4 is a see-through view of a component part of the apparatus shownin FIGS. 1, 2 and 3;

FIG. 5 is an exploded view of the component part shown in FIG. 4;

FIG. 6 is a schematic exploded view of the apparatus shown in FIG. 1.

With reference to the above-cited Figures, a food processing orpreparation apparatus according to the prior art comprises:

-   -   an outer casing 1,    -   a top surface such as a cooktop or, more generally, a worktop 2,    -   a front wall 3,    -   a rear wall 4,    -   a second front wall 5 extending above said top surface 2,    -   suction means adapted to take in, i.e. extract the gases or        fumes that are generally generated at and released from said        worktop 2, and comprising a suction mouth provided in the        internal zone of said second upper front wall 5,    -   filtering means adapted to filter said gases or fumes and        exhaust them again into the ambient from which they had been        extracted.

According to the present invention, the suction mouth 6 is not situatedin a raised position at the height of the upper edge of said secondfront wall 5, but is rather positioned exactly in correspondence to theportion at which the worktop 2 intersects the same second vertical wall5, and is substantially as large as the worktop itself. Preferably, itis closed on top by a grille 7, so as to prevent foreign matters of anykind from being able to be accidentally introduced in the same suctionmouth and giving rise to a number of possible problems, such as forinstance the possibility for them to cause the suction fan to run into alocked condition.

Said second upper front wall 5 can therefore be made in the form of justa thin curved plate. With reference to FIGS. 1 and 3, in an advantageousmanner this second upper front plate 5 starts extending upwards from thefront wall 3 in an almost vertical direction; then it goes on bygradually curving towards the zone of the worktop 2 until it eventuallybecomes almost horizontal.

In this final configuration, it protrudes backwards with quiteremarkable an overhang, so that its rearmost edge 8 comes to lie in aposition located beyond the vertical 9 of the centre-line extendingacross said casing 1.

It has in fact been found that such backward-oriented overhang, whencombined with the suction effect on the horizontal plane ensured by thehorizontal orientation of the final length of said wall 5, is effectivein ensuring a very efficient, optimum performance in extracting thefumes and gases generated at and released from the worktop 2, includingthe fumes being released from the zone of the worktop that is notactually covered by the overhanging portion of said wall 5.

In addition, at least in the upper portion thereof, such second wall 5is suitably made of a clear, i.e. see-through material, so that acustomer standing in front of the apparatus is capable of convenientlyand unobstructedly viewing the food lying on said worktop 2 for a properselection thereof, as well as for watching the manner in which theselected food is prepared.

Said grille 7 is furthermore advantageously inclined towards the worktop2, i.e.—as clearly shown in FIG. 3—it features such an inclination as tomake sure that the suction vector A of the gases being extracted by saidgrille has both a top-down vertical component A_(v) and a horizontalcomponent A_(o) moving parallel to the direction that goes from the rearwall 4 to the front wall 3.

In view of further facilitating the conveyance of the gases towards saidgrille, and preventing any portion of said gases from being able toescape from or at the sides, between the side edges 13 and 14 of theworktop 2 and the side edges 15 and 16 of said second upper wall 5 thereare advantageously provided two vertical wings 17, 18 that preferablyrise up from the rear corners 13A and 14A of the respective said sideedges 13 and 14.

Under the afore-cited mouth 6—and connected thereto—there is provided avertical, sensibly central suction conduit 10, in which there isprovided an appropriate suction fan 11.

Downstream from said fan, said conduit 10 extends downwards to debouchinto two filtering chambers 20 and 21, which are provided and arrangedsymmetrically relative to said conduit 10, these two chambers being ingeneral located near the bottom and at the sides on the rear of saidouter casing.

Owing to these chambers 20, 21 being not only symmetrical, but alsofully similar to each other, only one of them will be describedhereinbelow, wherein it shall be readily appreciated that theconsiderations set forth in this connection obviously apply—in acorresponding manner—also to the other filtering chamber.

With reference to FIG. 4, the filtering chamber 20 is formed in theshape of a rectangular parallelepiped and is provided with an inflowport 20A, whereas the stream of filtered air is let out directlydownwards, i.e. through the immaterial surface of the same base, whoseperimeter is indicated by a double line 20B.

Inside this filtering chamber 20 there is arranged a filter plate 30, ofa kind as generally known as such in the art, that is adapted tointercept and filter out even the smallest solid residues and fume andfat particles contained in the gas passing through said filter plate. Itis on the other hand a largely known and established fact that thelarger the filtering surface area of a filter plate whatsoever, the moreefficient will be the filtering effect of such filter plate and thesmaller the pressure drop it implies in the flow of gas passingtherethrough.

Accordingly, in view of taking as full as possible an advantage of theplanar surface area available in the filtering chamber 20, theabove-cited filter plate 30 is arranged between two parallel anddiagonally opposite sides 31 and 32 of said chamber 20, so that thefiltering chamber 20 itself is practically subdivided into two prismaticvolumes 23 and 24, as this is schematically illustrated in FIG. 5.

In addition, in view of ensuring that such filtering plates 30 arecapable of being readily removed and replaced from the outside, inparticular by the same operator in attendance of the apparatus, thesefilter plates are arranged so as to lie orthogonally to the plane of therear wall 4 and capable of being accessed, i.e. reached from such wall.

Therefore, when the filtering chamber 20 is made and provided so that:

-   -   the backwards facing wall 25 thereof can be opened or removed        from the outside, and    -   the respective filter plate 30 is arranged orthogonally to said        wall and is in turn easily removable, and replaceable, by simply        letting it slide along said two support sides 31 and 32,        the extremely advantageous result is obtained of combining the        most desirable effects of a very high filtering efficiency and a        very low loss of flow pressure with an improved replaceability        and serviceability of the filters themselves in a single and        same apparatus.

Said filter plate 30 can of course be oriented outwards and—at the sametime—upwards, as illustrated in FIG. 4, or also in such manner as tocause the stream of filtered air to be exhausted towards the wall thatfaces backwards, towards the operator. In this case, the filter plate 30may be positioned on a vertical plane and be delimited, along twoopposite edges thereof, by two vertical, diagonally opposed sides ofsaid chamber 20 (not shown in the Figures).

Such different arrangement, however, does by no means affect the needfor the respective inflow port 20A to direct the flow into a definiteone, e.g. the one indicated at 23, of said prismatic volumes 23 and 24,and the related outflow port 20B to open up into the other one, e.g. theone indicated at 24, of said prismatic volumes and, obviously, towardssaid rear wall 4.

Fully apparent from the above description and, in particular, theillustration appearing in FIG. 1 is therefore the ability of theinventive apparatus to achieve optimum results in terms of efficient aircirculation and operating quietness, owing to the fact that the flow ofair is re-circulated along an almost closed-loop flow-path, which is inparticular curved in a continuous, progressive and by no means abruptmanner, wherein elbow-shaped sections, in which through-flowing gasesmay give rise to hissing or roaring sounds, are above all reduced to aminimum.

1. Free-standing apparatus (cooking island) for cooking or preparingfood, in particular intended for mass or commercial foodserviceapplications, comprising: an outer casing (1), a top surface such as acooktop or, more generally, a worktop (2), a front wall (3), a rear wall(4), a second front upper wall (5) extending above said top surface (2),suction means adapted to take in, i.e. extract the gases or fumes thatare generally generated at and released from said cook/worktop,filtering means adapted to filter said gases or fumes being extracted,characterized in that said suction means comprise a suction mouth (6)positioned between said cook/worktop (2) and said second front wall (5)and extending substantially over the whole width of said outer casing.2. Apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that said secondfront wall (5) has a curved conformation, wherein it starts by extendingalmost vertically at a lower portion thereof to then continue bygradually curving rearwards until it eventually becomes substantiallyhorizontal.
 3. Apparatus according to claim 2, characterized in that therear upper edge (8) of said second front upper wall (5) lies beyond thevertical (9) of the centre line extending across the depth of saidcook/worktop (2).
 4. Apparatus according to claim 1, characterized inthat said suction mouth (6) is provided on top with a grille (7). 5.Apparatus according to claim 4, characterized in that said grille (7) isinclined forwards and upwards so as to be oriented in a direction fromsaid cook/worktop (2) to said second front upper wall (5).
 6. Apparatusaccording to claim 3, characterized in that it is provided with two sidewings (17, 18) arranged to extend vertically between the upper sideedges (13, 14) of said cook/worktop (2) and the respective curved sideedges or portions (15, 16) of said second front upper wall (5). 7.Apparatus according to claim 6, characterized in that said wings (17,18) rise up from the rear corners (13A, 14A) of the respective said sideedges (13, 14).
 8. Apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in thatsaid second front upper wall (5) is at least partially transparent. 9.Apparatus according to any of the preceding claims claim 1,characterized in that it is provided with a suction conduit (10) that issituated under said mouth (6), oriented downwards, and arrangedcentrally and vertically in said outer casing, wherein an appropriatesuction fan (11) is associated to such conduit, and wherein the lowerportion of said conduit (10) is connected via an inflow port (20A) to atleast a filtering chamber (20) that is provided with a related exhaustsection (20B).
 10. Apparatus according to claim 9, characterized in thatsaid filtering chamber is in the shape of a prism having a preferablyquadrangular cross-section, and is provided with a filter plate (30)arranged between two diagonally opposed, non contiguous sides (31, 32)of said filtering chamber.
 11. Apparatus according to claim 10,characterized in that said filter plate (30) is arranged on a plane thatis substantially orthogonal to said rear wall (4) of said outer casing,and subdivides said filtering chamber (20) into two contiguous prismaticvolumes (23, 24) having a preferably triangular cross-section. 12.Apparatus according to claim 11, characterized in that said inflow port(20A) opens into a first one (23) of said prismatic volumes, and in thatsaid exhaust aperture (20B) opens from the second one (24) of saidprismatic volumes.
 13. Apparatus according to claim 12, characterized inthat said exhaust aperture (20B) opens downwards.
 14. Apparatusaccording to claim 10, characterized in that said filter plate (30) isarranged on a plane that is substantially vertical and inclined relativeto said rear wall (4) of said outer casing, said filter plate (30)subdivides said filtering chamber (20) into two contiguous prismaticvolumes (23, 24) having a preferably triangular cross-section, and saidinflow port (20A) opens into a first one (23) of said prismatic volumes,and said exhaust aperture (20B) opens towards said rear wall (4). 15.Apparatus according to claim 2, characterized in that said suction mouth(6) is provided on top with a grille (7).
 16. Apparatus according toclaim 3, characterized in that said suction mouth (6) is provided on topwith a grille (7).
 17. Apparatus according to claim 2, characterized inthat said second front upper wall (5) is at least partially transparent.18. Apparatus according to claim 3, characterized in that said secondfront upper wall (5) is at least partially transparent.
 19. Apparatusaccording to claim 4, characterized in that said second front upper wall(5) is at least partially transparent.
 20. Apparatus according to claim5, characterized in that said second front upper wall (5) is at leastpartially transparent.